Black Sun Light My Way

by Spurrier, Jo

  Her belly constricted to a hard knot. ‘By the Black Sun herself …’

  ‘I suppose it depends on how badly you want Kell dealt with,’ Rasten said with narrowed eyes. ‘I don’t doubt Balorica could give us good advice, but what chance does he have of defending himself if Kell overhears and tracks him down?’

  ‘Could we shield against him? In the dungeons we spoke often enough without fear of Kell overhearing.’

  ‘Speaking mind to mind is a different matter,’ Rasten said. ‘And besides, he still thought me loyal then. Well, Sirri? What’s it to be?’

  He was testing her, she was certain of it, testing to see whether she truly meant to see this through to the end or if merely driving Kell from power and from Ricalan would satisfy her. It was so very tempting — the brothers were only a few days’ ride away. For a moment she pictured flinging herself at Isidro’s feet and begging his forgiveness.

  But then she had to turn away from that trail of thought, tossing her head like a fly-stung horse. She couldn’t go back while Kell was still free to work harm. The power she held was a dreadful thing, but surely the Black Sun had given it to her for a reason. If she had been made to rid the world of Kell, then she could have no peace until she had accomplished the task.

  ‘Isidro’s suffered enough,’ she said. ‘I won’t drag him back into this if it risks putting him in Kell’s path once again.’

  Rasten watched her for a long moment with a cold and unreadable gaze before turning his horse to follow the trail south.

  Staring at his back, Sierra couldn’t work out if he was angry with her for her decision or pleased by it.

  Delphine bit her lip as she looked around the neat interior of the tent. The sight of four sets of bedding pushed back against the walls gave her some trepidation — she still wasn’t comfortable sleeping in such close quarters with others — but at least it wouldn’t be for longer than a few nights.

  It was only once the work was done and the tent was in order that she remembered she hadn’t taken her daily dose of herbs. Rummaging through her kitbag for the birch-bark case, she discovered that some of her gear was damp. The landslip had knocked a pot of water from the stove, and it must have spilled over her bag. Her first thought was the books and her papers, but they had all been spared, so she hung her clothes out to dry, and then discovered that Rhia’s herbs were also wet.

  Delphine measured out her usual dose, frowning to herself as she calculated what was left — there should be enough to last until Ardamon’s men returned, but would Rhia have any more to give her? She would just have to wait and see. While the contraceptive tea was brewing, Delphine wrapped the remainder of the damp herbs in a clean rag and set it near the stove to dry. She was just drinking the last of her tea when Cam called a welcome from the campfire outside, and she heard Isidro reply.

  Cam and Mira led the lame and weary horses to a nearby stream to let the cold water soothe their legs. Alternating cold water and hot compresses would hasten the beasts’ healing, Isidro explained, but Delphine just nodded dubiously. She knew nothing of animal husbandry and had never had much desire to learn — but she would have to, she supposed, if she took up Isidro’s offer and stayed here in the far north. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘and I’d best tell you … Mira isn’t pregnant. She only found out this morning.’

  ‘Oh, the poor girl,’ Delphine said. ‘Is she alright? I thought it was terribly painful to lose a babe.’

  ‘She didn’t seem to be in pain,’ Isidro said, ‘and I’ve no idea if she lost it or if there ever was a child to begin with. She always said it was too soon to be sure either way.’

  ‘The poor girl,’ Delphine said again. ‘But at least, with Cam alive, it’s not as bad as it could be. Issey, tell me, are you alright with this news?’

  ‘I … I am,’ he said after a pause. ‘It’s wretchedly sad, of course, and Cam will grieve when he hears of it, but Mira always said she wasn’t certain. If it weren’t for that, I’d be more disappointed, I think. As it was I didn’t dare hope too much …’ he frowned then, gazing down at the bare ground and the tender spring grass.

  ‘She hadn’t told him, then?’

  ‘She was going to wait,’ he said. ‘But she promised she would. We should stay out of their way today.’

  ‘Well,’ Delphine said, ‘as a matter of fact I have a task for us. If those soldiers do come our way, it’d be wise to have some defences. I’ve found a few mentions of defensive enchantments in the books, and we should see if there’s anything we can use. I think you’re advanced enough to attempt some of them.’

  ‘It’s a good thought,’ Isidro said with a nod.

  By mid-afternoon they’d made a handful of promising enchantments — a few shield-stones, some decoys that gave off a distracting buzz of energy to anyone sensitive enough to feel it, and something called a quietener, which masked a spill of energy that another mage might sense. Isidro made more of the blasting-stones as well, while Delphine focussed her attention on one of the rare milk-white stones they’d brought from the Spire.

  ‘I … I think I’ve done it,’ she said at last, lifting her head and carefully stretching her neck and shoulders. ‘It’s a wretchedly delicate thing, but I think it’s stable now. Here, what do you think?’ She tipped it into his hands and began working the stiffness from her fingers and her wrists.

  ‘It feels steady to me,’ he said. ‘But what does it do? I can feel the power in it, but I can’t seem to get a good look at it.’

  ‘It’s a camouflage device. The old texts call it Tiger in the Reeds. A few of those enchantments have close analogues in the Akharian school, but this is something I’ve never seen before.’

  They packed the books away and took the stone to a patch of bare ground, where Delphine activated the enchantment and set it down as a test. Isidro felt the stone pulse with one flicker of energy, and then it disappeared.

  Delphine blinked at the bare grass, then hunkered down with a curse and began feeling across the earth. ‘Ye Gods, that was stupid. It casts a kind of shield, you see, which reflects the ground around it like a mirror. It’s not a proper shield — you could put an arrow right through it. Apparently even the best mages couldn’t incorporate any kind of armour into it. Ah, there it is …’ She deactivated the stone and at once it appeared in her hand again, a warm white lump of rock. ‘Well then, the first rule is, don’t put the rotten thing down when it’s in use. Could you feel it at all, Issey?’

  ‘I could feel … something,’ he said. ‘But not enough to let me find it.’

  ‘Not entirely Sensitive-proof, then,’ Delphine said. ‘Here,’ she activated it again and pressed it into his hand. ‘You stand right there and let me see how it looks.’ No sooner had she taken a few steps away, however, than she began to laugh so hard that she couldn’t find the breath to explain why. Instead she came and took it from him, and when she stepped back, he saw it himself. It looked as though Delphine had picked up the grassy earth like a blanket and thrown it over her head.

  With testing, they discovered that it worked very well on open ground if the user was lying down and perfectly still. When standing next to a tree or on the edge of a stream the disturbance was clearly visible, for the patterns taken on by the shield failed to match up with the features of the land around it. What’s more, the person wielding the device had no way to tell just how it looked. In the right situation Isidro saw it could save lives, but it would take nerves of iron to trust the thing if the enemy was right nearby.

  ‘Apparently they were used for ambushes quite a lot,’ Delphine said. ‘So much so that the old Ricalani mages crafted other devices to try to detect them. From what I read they worked much as your talent does — they would react to the presence but not allow the thing to be found with any precision.’

  The day had grown late as they tested the device, and they were interrupted then by Cam and Mira, returning from the stream. The weather had shifted while Isidro was too engrossed to notice, and dark clouds were g
athering overhead.

  There was a small cave on the slope above the camp, a tunnel that cut right through the hill from one side to the other, which Isidro and Ardamon had checked over for signs of bears or tigers. The cave itself offered scant shelter as it seemed to catch and funnel the wind, but there was an overhang of rock that made a sheltered spot beside the entrance, and it was here that Cam tethered the horses just as it began to rain. While he checked the tether-lines, Mira gave Isidro and Delphine an odd look. ‘What have you two been up to? I heard you scrambling around up here.’

  With that, Isidro was obliged to show her the device, and discovered that while it was completely useless in concealing him if he stood in the mouth of the cave, it worked very well if he held it while pressing himself against the rock wall.

  Delphine cast a shield to keep them all dry on the way back to the tent, and then watched, frowning, as the men looked over the trench Cam had dug around it to direct any water away.

  ‘It should be enough to keep us dry, shouldn’t it?’ Delphine asked.

  ‘It should, unless the rain gets truly heavy,’ Cam replied.

  By sunset, the floor was sodden, and they were all scrambling to get their bags and bedding off the ground before it was completely soaked.

  ‘We’ll have to go to the cave,’ Mira said, helping Delphine shove all her clothing back in her kitbag.

  ‘I’m not sure I like that idea,’ Cam said. ‘What’s to say the quakes didn’t weaken the roof?’

  ‘It seemed stable to me,’ Delphine said. ‘I can always reinforce it if it bothers you.’

  ‘I like the sound of that better than spending the night standing around with wet feet,’ Mira said.

  The draught through the cave whistled around them as strong as ever, but there was one little side-passage just big enough for them all to lie down in. Once the stove was brought in the rock walls reflected the heat back upon them.

  ‘Well,’ Mira said when they were finally ensconced in the cramped space. ‘Isn’t this cosy? Back in a wretched cave again. I do hope we won’t be stuck in this one for the next month or more.’

  Delphine cast a shield across the entrance, constructing a barrier that would keep wind out and warmth in while still letting people out to check the horses, and then looked around with a sigh. There was less room here than there had been in the tent, and she had worried then about being crowded too close for comfort. Still, it was warm and dry, and that was something to be grateful for. She wrapped herself in her blankets and tried to sleep, wondering if she was mad to seriously consider Isidro’s suggestion of making a new home in Ricalan.

  After a few hours of fitful slumber, Isidro suddenly found himself wide awake with Delphine pressed against him on one side and the cave wall looming above him on the other. He lay perfectly still, wondering why his heart was pounding in his chest and his mouth felt as dry as a desert. The skin on his back, those healed burns just beginning to lose their fiery colour, prickled unpleasantly, as though his woollen shirt had grown inexplicably rough while he slept.

  Perhaps he’d had a bad dream. The nightmares did not come as often these days, but they troubled him on occasion. And he usually knew if he’d had one, didn’t he? Waking always came as a relief — he couldn’t recall rousing like this, with a permeating and unaccountable sense of unease.

  Isidro willed himself to forget it and go back to sleep, but as he lay there it seemed his heart was not slowing at all — if anything it was beating harder. In the end he decided the only thing to do was take a look around to settle his nerves.

  He crawled out of his furs, found his coat and boots bundled by the door and took them out of their tiny shelter so his fumbling wouldn’t wake the others. Out in the draught he dressed hastily, and then trudged to the end of the passage to check the horses.

  They were standing peacefully out of the wind. Neither had lain down, he noted. Horses only dozed on their feet and had to lie down to truly sleep, but they wouldn’t if they felt threatened. They flicked their ears as Isidro came over to rub their noses and check the heat of their swollen knees and fetlocks. Did they seem uneasy? They had both roused at his approach, and as he watched, each of them scented the air and flicked their ears back again to listen to the unquiet night. The rain had stopped, for now, but the wind still thrashed the tops of the trees, and low clouds scudded quickly overhead.

  Isidro went back through the cave, past the alcove where the others slept, feeling his way along the narrow, twisted passage. The heavy clouds made the night as dark as coal, but it was darker still beneath the rock: the kind of utter blackness that only exists underground. He wore a lantern-stone around his neck — he touched it lightly with his fingertips — but using it would destroy his night-vision, and so he navigated the hundred or so paces by touch before emerging onto the other flank of the hillside.

  He stood there for some time, searching for any movement in the night, but he heard only the crashing of branches. Perhaps he’d felt another aftershock? But surely that would have woken the others, and it would have left the horses spooked. His sense of unease was growing steadily stronger.

  There was a soft noise behind him, the rustle of leather and fur. Isidro held himself motionless, but he thought he knew the source. When a silhouette emerged from the darkness, it was the one he expected — Cam, wrapped in his coat with his sword strapped to his side, his sandy hair still mussed and untidy from sleep.

  Once they were close enough to see each other’s expressions, Cam raised one eyebrow.

  Isidro shook his head and shrugged. Something in the night was still twanging across his nerves like a discordant note.

  There seemed to be nothing out there that they would rouse by speaking, but Isidro stepped back into the mouth of the cave where the moaning of the wind would cover his voice. ‘Did something wake you?’ he murmured to Cam.

  Cam shook his head. ‘I just knew you were gone. When you didn’t come back after a few minutes I came to look. What is it, Issey?’

  Isidro shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I had this feeling. It was probably only a bad dream.’

  Cam watched him steadily. ‘I know better than to ignore one of your hunches. Was it something from Sierra?’

  Isidro frowned. ‘I didn’t think of that.’ Why hadn’t he? It seemed an obvious answer. ‘I’ll check.’ He crouched on the sodden ground with his back against a boulder, closed his eyes and thought of Sierra.

  For once she wasn’t shielded against him — she was asleep, wrapped in a too-large coat and curled on a bed of cooling stones. There was another body behind her, and he guessed it was Rasten. Well, it was better than her being alone, which would leave her low on power and with no one to watch her back.

  After a few moments he sensed Rasten, too. Their communication while Isidro was a slave had deepened the connection, but Isidro dared not stray too close. His skill in mage-craft may have grown, but he could not defend himself against so strong a mage.

  Just then Rasten stirred, tossing and snorting in his sleep. Isidro held himself still, not daring to breathe until he settled. Then, as he was about to pull back, he noticed another branch on the trail that connected him to the two apprentices.

  Every instinct Isidro had told him it was a bad idea, but he had to know.

  It was peculiar, the way this mental connection worked. There was no sense of distance; the strength of connection was purely a function of the power of the mages and how deep the track between them had worn. His connection with Sierra was the deepest, with Rasten only a little way behind. This third path was wild and overgrown. There could only be one person at the other end of it. Isidro was under no illusions as to just what he would find.

  Kell felt him coming. The old man had reined in his exhausted and stumbling horse, and waited as Isidro crept closer. Then, once he felt Isidro’s full attention on him, Kell summoned a globe of tawny golden light and tossed it into the air. Around him, Isidro saw the steep hills and gorges of the White Tiger R
anges.

  The shock of it threatened to break his trance — Isidro only barely held on to it. He pulled back, so quickly that the movement left him dizzy. Somewhere at once impossibly near and yet incredibly far away he could feel his heart pounding in his chest and a sudden fearful sweat prickling on his back.

  But Kell’s attention was still on him — Isidro could feel the glow of his power like sunlight on his face. If he went back to his body now and ran to warn the others, he would show Kell exactly where he was and who was with him. He had only one chance to protect his companions.

  Isidro steeled himself — somewhere, he felt his lungs fill as he drew a deep breath — and reached for Sierra.

  Sirri! I need your help!

  She woke at once, spluttering and gasping from an exhausted sleep. Issey?

  Kell’s here, Sierra, he’s come east to the ranges. Through her eyes he saw Rasten sit up, yawning as he raked a hand through his dark curls. There was no surprise in his face, although Isidro could feel Sierra’s heart racing to match his own.

  Where are you?

  Nearly two hundred miles away. He must have ridden all night and all day to get here. Panic was warring with the need to stay calm. Kell could have stayed hidden, but he’d felt Isidro approach and chose to let himself be seen. Isidro had only the barest glimpse of the hillside around him, but everything he saw indicated Kell was in this same piece of country. He could be within shouting distance, even. Sirri, I have to warn the others but I don’t want to lead him to them. Can you shield me, or give me power —

  He didn’t have time to complete the thought before she opened her gates and power flooded through him. It came in a molten torrent, a pure crackling stream of force, sharper and more vicious than he’d known before. Isidro had the sense that it could turn on him in a heartbeat.

  Call me again if you need more, Sierra said and pulled back without another word, cutting the contact and sending him rushing back to his body.